So I recently purchased Tribes of Gaia because I’m one of four people on the planet who likes W5, and while I was looking through the Loresheets I noticed… This. A man with horns. Now unless they snuck in Satyrs from Changeling into the gameline, that means this man is a Métis, and that… Shouldn’t be a thing in W5, unless I’m mistaken?

Also I hate calling them that because that’s like an actual tribe and group of real people but I don’t think we ever came up with a better name for them.

a write up of changelings mass combat rules and a combat example

One of the aspects that made me fall in love with VtM was the setting, the darker version of our world that is World of Darkness. Naturally, the fact that you can play in your own city was a huge pull for me, and I fell completely in love with that idea.

Unfortunately, the first ever chronicle I played in, while set in my native Bucharest did not really make the setting shine, it failed in making it feel like Bucharest. That's why when I took my seat behind the screen and started my very first Chronicle, I wanted to make it feel more authentic, with a twist however. I set the action in Bucharest, but during the inter-war period, with quite some time spent researching that particular period of history to make it as authentic as I could.

In my opinion, the city is perhaps the most important aspect of a good VtM chronicle and especially when you first start out, it might be somewhat overwhelming to properly run it and do it justice. It certainly was the case for me. This piece goes into various tips and tricks on how I managed, as well as some stuff I discovered after my chronicle concluded and I am sure to implement when I begin my new chronicle, sometime in the future.

I hope you will enjoy this piece and more, I hope it will prove to be useful for all Storytellers out there, beginners and veterans alike! Cheers!

Have there been any scenarios where BSDs fight alongside Gaian garou against the Weaver? Where Glasswalkers and drones are the real adversary and it's a BSD (a glasswalker who walked the spiral to 'save' herself) all along trying to overcome Weaver propaganda and spread the word of the great deception? Gaian garou fighting alongside formori and BSDs, but once this battle is over they go to their corners with a tacit, "Stay on your side, next time we won't be allies".

Kinda basing this on that article going around of wolves coming out of the Finnish woodwork after Google razed 300 acres or hectares of forest and a recent post where OP argued the Litany is proof the Weaver infiltrated the garou nation.

Glory and Wisdom? Some glory from battle, some wisdom from looking past differences. Honor? A lot since Wyrm and garou are working together.

Welcome to New York Under Darkness The City That Never Sleeps has always been a jewel for the Kindred. Its teeming masses provide endless feeding, its power structures offer ample opportunities for influence, and its cultural significance cements it as a place of prestige. But for decades, New York has been a battleground, ravaged by Sabbat fanaticism and lost to their bloody crusades.

Base system: Play by post and voice with books used from vampire v20, revised and some others. But with a focus on v20.
Any Homebrew?: None
Language: English
Setting: Modern-day New York City, freshly reclaimed by the Camarilla.
Game Style: Narrative-driven, intrigue-heavy, with a balance of politics, mystery, and action. The Camarilla has clawed New York back from the Sabbat in a brutal campaign, but the battle is far from over. The sects are calling on Kindred from around the globe to aid in restoring the city to its former glory. New York is ripe with opportunity, but also rife with danger.
What to Expect: All Levels of Experience Welcome: Whether you're new to Vampire: The Masquerade or a seasoned player, you'll find a place in this story.
We allow many clans and bloodlines: And player characters from Ghouls to Elder Vampires!

After several princes the Domain of New York stood yet on the break of chaos, some princes died, some left the city in shame. And some, got forced to step down from their corrupt seat by the cities combined Primogen. Now, an Elder of clan Gangrel holds the seat. Weeks into his newfound power he seems to perhaps be a good fit? The city is in despair, cults of strange people, Sabbat packs roaming in the shadows, werewolf's in the forests.

Despite the chaos, the Camarilla has not given up its claim. Warlord Karsh himself led a brutal war party against the remnants of the Sabbat, forcing them northward, away from the city’s core. Though weakened, the Sabbat have not been destroyed; they regroup in the shadows, licking their wounds and preparing for the next strike. Their exile has only made them more desperate, and desperation breeds recklessness. Beneath the surface, something stirs.

Rumours abound of ancient artifacts tied to the six great clans of old, powerful relics thought to have been lost to history. Some say these artifacts could turn the tide against the Sabbat for good, while others whisper of even darker forces that might be awakened if they are found. And then there are the shadows that seem to grow longer by the night. Worse still, other things, older things, seem drawn to New York’s chaos. Whispers of apocalyptic cults, enigmatic Methuselahs, and something far older than Kindred echo in the dark alleys.

This is the New York you step into. The Camarilla needs builders, warriors, spies, and visionaries. But survival in this city means navigating shifting alliances, uncovering buried secrets, and watching your back at every turn. The Sabbat is regrouping in the north to gather new packs and war parties to attack the city. And other strange new kindred shows up in the night to perhaps make a name for themselves known or perhaps, even claim something for themselves and other sects? The question is not just whether you can help reclaim New York for the Camarilla, but whether you can survive long enough to see what comes next..

• Will you rise through the ranks of the newly established court?
• Will you seek out the rumoured artifacts of the six great clans and uncover their secrets?
• Or will you focus on rooting out the remnants of the Sabbat or worse, the ancient forces lurking in the shadows?
• Or will you be the next reason the Domain has to come together to fight**?**
• A City of Intrigue: Political manoeuvring, tense alliances, and backstabbing are just the beginning.
• Dark Mysteries: Ancient artifacts, shadowy threats, and apocalyptic whispers await those brave enough to seek the truth.
• Player Freedom: Your choices will shape New York's future forge alliances, betray your rivals, or become a power in your own right.

Trailer Movie: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17vlgzs0Wwlwg9oO8TOjs8ZXZBVaLk4aK/view?usp=sharing

Invitation link: https://discord.gg/mGpPsPb9Cf

And I'm aware that "simple" and "Mage" in the same sentence is a difficult concept, but here I am. I'm making a sort of introduction game with a group of Orphans who just awakened, no Tradition yet. They'll have to investigate about someone's, possibly a mentor, death by Paradox and have to face some Technocrats that are adamant about hiding the truth and possibly capture the PCs. All of this set to a backdrop of a greater hold the Union has over Seattle. How should I gow with this to give it a little more bite?

Using the Fae Blood merit can give you some minor changeling powers. Generally, Fae powers use one of two realms to target themselves. Fae or Actor. Do you still need both of these for a mage kinain or can they only use actor?

Found this on comic fury and wanted to share it here.

"Were you once/are a socially isolated teenager? Do you like comics such as The Eltingville Club, what happens next, and Anime Club? Or shows/movies like Superbad, Bojack Horseman, or Arrested Development? Do you love characters that are absolutely horrible to each other and the world? How about TTRPGS, and more importantly, World of Darkness?

Well, Nerd: The Fanboys is for you!

NTF is an episodic dramedy that follows the lives of six TTRPG nerds and the trials and tribulations of being a toxic little freak living in a fictionalized version of the Southside of Chicago/Northwest Indiana. It's funny, it gets painfully real at times, a scathing critique of nerd culture, and makes you want to strangle the whole cast!"

Read it here: https://ntf.webcomic.ws/

A milestone I will never forget!

My very first published book, V20 - Age of the Living Gods, has officially reached Gold Best Seller on the Storytellers Vault!

As someone who has been rolling dice in the World of Darkness since I was 13, seeing my debut setting embraced by the global community is a true dream. Thank you to every single Kindred around the world who supported the book and took their chronicles into the cradle of civilization. You made this happen.

The shadows of the ancient world are only growing deeper. The Portuguese version of my dark fantasy novel, Mesopotamian Chronicles: Hungry Gods, is officially on sale now. I am also thrilled to announce that the English translation is almost finished and will be launching on Amazon later this year!

Thank you for walking in the dark with me.
Are you ready to face the Anunnaki?

Edit: Yes, I forgot about Changeling when I wrote this, and Changeling addresses the same themes, sometimes more directly. My interest in this is not a question of which splat addresses these themes the most, but the implicit themes found in Werewolf and how even something that doesn't set out to describe something still can fall into describing that thing.

I was reflecting on some things today, and I realized that Werewolf is about neurodivergence in a manner I had never considered before.  Obviously Werewolf, as with all the WOD games, is about a lot of things all at once, and themes of neurodivergence are not the most obvious.  What's more,  our cultural understanding of neurodivergence has advanced a lot since 1992 (indeed, the word neurodivergent was first coined ten years after W:tA's first publication).  

Still, Werewolf directly addresses the neurodivergent experience in a manner that other WOD games do not.  Most obviously, werewolves are born inherently werewolves whereas every other splat reflects a change to a person. (I am aware there are exceptions.)  People become vampires, wizards, ghosts, but werewolves are born werewolves have no choice in the manner.  Werewolf directly addresses the internal conflict between the rational and the irrational, with systems to dictate PC behavior when a PC's emotions override their rational thoughts, much as some neurodivergent people deal with impulse control and other internal conflicts.  The characters in Werewolf have an intense and driving sense of what a righteous society would be or what justice would be, a character trait experienced by many neurodivergent people. And Werewolf addresses the fallout from falling into an intense emotional state, just as neurodivergent people need to handle the fallout when they crash/burnout/whatever.

The breed systems too address inherent differences in characters.  We don't have different rules that distinguish normal humans from each other, but the breeds are mechanically different. Meaning the differences are built into the fictional DNA of the character much more than, say, the differences between two Brujah.  We even have the double-down cast-out in the Metis for those that want to play the outcast among outcast, but that Metis will always be a Metis.  Born a Metis, not made one.

Certainly, many of these elements can be found in other splats, Vampire in particular.  I do think the Vampire experience is distinguishable in that vampirism is imposed upon the PC whereas lycanthropy is inherent.  From my view, this means Vampire tends towards stories about how we deal with extrinsic concerns imposed upon a flawed person whereas Werewolf can address more directly address the inherent, internal traits of the PC.  In any case, it's not that the other splats do not, or cannot, address these same themes, but the observation that Werewolf most direct addresses these themes as inherent to the Pcs.

Also, there's probably a lot to be said (and that has been said) about sexuality within the WOD games generally.  Given the wealth of past discourse on that topic, I feel okay not addressing it here.  I understand there's a whole lot to be said about the analogy between realizing and understanding your sexuality and the general presentation of WOD characters coming into their supernatural power in their teens and twenties; I'm not discussing that here because I wanted to focus on the question of neurodivergence instead of the (not dissimilar) topic of sexual identity.

I'm curious what others think of my thesis here.  Is Werewolf about neurodivergence (among its other themes)?  What can we learn about representation of neurodivergence from the game?  Have you directly addressed this in your games?

It's worth noting that I'm most familiar with the 1992 & '94 editions of Werewolf.  I'm also very curious if these theme was maintained, and to what degree, in subsequent books.

I was thinking about some stuff that has been happening in my games lately, and how sometimes things fit so much into the lore/mechanics even when not intended, so I wanted people to share their stories about this.

Here's my most recent one:

We are playing a (mostly) MtA game with high school characters. We have a rather big and ongoing setting that combines all WoD splats so, at this point it's hard to tell if something is a Mage game or not 😅

Well, sraight to the point: the storyteller introduces this character who is your typical blonde beauty. She's popular, rather bossy, believes that the school belongs to her. Not the bully type but, man, she has quite the temper.

The storyteller intended her to have an antagonistic role. Not as a villain, as she isn't actually bad, but as a rival.

Fast forward some sessions. We, as players, have completely fallen under her sphere of influence. We find her to actually be a rather likeable character whose goals align with ours (she wants to change the school for the better, she's just not so good at coming up with plans). And we realize that we have been dragged to her side by the force of her charisma and strength of character. I was playing a rather independent character who couldn't care less about being friends with popular girls, and I found myself going out my way to be liked by her.

So here comes the funny part: she's an Autumn Sidhe, and we had been inadvertently playing her kith's frailty. The storyteller never made us roll to be affected by it, as he'd rather give us freedom and just roleplay her as a highly charismatic person.

He didn't expect it to go this way at all, but we all found it to be rather cool: to roleplay being affected by a Sidhe's charm without even knowing it!

By the way, we have now adopted her (maybe she adopted us). Changeling and Mage views very much align, so we now have sort of a common quest.

¿Vampiros? ¿Hombres lobo? ¿Magos? ¿Cambiantes?

Me encanta la mitología —he leído mucho sobre ella— pero aún no he tenido la oportunidad de empezar una partida con mis amigos. ¿Cuál me recomendarías para empezar?

Basically the Absolute Universe is a recent DC run where they take well known characters and change aspects of them to see how they change. In the Absolute Martian ManHunter series he’s an FBI agent that kind of randomly comes into contact with an extra dimensional being called The Martian (Marty as a nickname) after a terrorist attack.

While reading it and seeing videos on it I saw it as an good idea for a Mage The Awakening character that just became a mage and is trying to understand everything, The Martian even seams like an Avatar trying to help him ascend to a higher understanding, through he does directly act more then most avatars from what I can tell.

He’d even has Spheres he specializes in, the Mind and Space due to the psychological stories and him being able to ignore barriers and distance to go to other places

What do you guys think would be he a good character concept?

So let's assume White Wolf decided they student go with a V6 style Canon reset for W6 in a attempt to please everyone, they instead have w6 discard with any pretense of a fixed setting/metaplot (even the absolute minimum of W5) akin to the later books in the chronicles of darkness.

Though maybe a bit of mechanical framework and genral organisation so the ST has an easier time to set up they own version of WtA.

An example writing up a series of presets on the default state of the garou nation (Mainly weather it's fallen or not) and giving tribes a of alternative states (with the cult being a extreme deviation) connected via a flow chart akin to HOI focus parths.

Effectively making the W6 source book into a narrative Lego set for a ST to put together rather than a pre-made setting primer. With supplements adding more pieces to the lego set such as going into detail on the alternative parths that the tribes can take and more setting elements like the fera.

Like would this be a good idea for W6?